Obsession: Dove Cameron, Avan Jogia to star in James Wan thriller series based on 56 Days novel

Atomic Monster, the production company headed up by genre regular James Wan, is teaming with Amazon Studios to produce a psychological thriller series based on the best-selling novel 56 Days, by Catherine Ryan Howard (pick up a copy HERE). Titled Obsession, this adaptation of Howard’s work got an official series order at the end of last year – and now Deadline has learned that Dove Cameron of Schmigadoon! and Descendants and Avan Jogia, who dealt with zombies in both Zombieland: Double Tap and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, have been cast in the lead roles.

Lisa Zwerling and Karyn Usher, who were behind the Starz drama The Rook, are writing the adaptation and serve as executive producers alongside Wan and Atomic Monster’s Michael Clear and Rob Hackett. Danielle Bozzone will oversee the series for Atomic Monster. Howard is a co-executive producer.

Written by Howard during the pandemic lockdown in Dublin back in 2020, 56 Days is set during that very same lockdown. It tells the story of an intense, erotic romance that turns deadly. It follows two young professionals, striking out on their own in a new city, who are entangled quickly in a charged relationship that leads to a powerful intimacy that is soon cracked open by their secrets … and to murder. Here’s the book description: No one even knew they were together. Now one of them is dead. 56 DAYS AGO: Ciara and Oliver meet in a supermarket queue in Dublin and start dating the same week COVID-19 reaches Irish shores. 35 DAYS AGO: When lockdown threatens to keep them apart, Oliver suggests they move in together. Ciara sees a unique opportunity for a relationship to flourish without the scrutiny of family and friends. Oliver sees a chance to hide who — and what — he really is. TODAY: Detectives arrive at Oliver’s apartment to discover a decomposing body inside. Can they determine what really happened, or has lockdown created an opportunity for someone to commit the perfect crime?

The Obsession adaptation is not set during the pandemic lockdown, but it will center on Oliver and Ciara, who meet randomly in a supermarket and quickly fall into a relationship. Fifty-six days later, homicide investigators arrive at Oliver’s apartment to find an unidentified body — brutally murdered and intentionally decomposed. Did he kill her? Did she kill him? Intercutting between an intense single day in the present investigation and the twisted trajectory of the young lovers’ affair in the past, the series is both a unique crime story and a riveting, erotic, psychological thriller.

Are you interested in watching Dove Cameron and Avan Jogia in an erotic psychological thriller series produced by James Wan? Share your thoughts on Obsession by leaving a comment below.